


Dead reckoning

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous levihan, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I love the fact that we have no idea how to spell their names, My moirail said I'm allowed to use ship tags if it's onesided or ambiguous, Onesided rivetra, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>n.</i> to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.</p>
<p>(Alternatively: Levi dies to save his squad. They mourn.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead reckoning

**nodus tollens** _n._ the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don't understand, that don't even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

The moment Captain Levi appears, Gunther feels a chill settle on his bones, the sensation that things aren't supposed to go this way. He can't explain why it's there, why he wants to yell to the captain to go away, that they can handle it, that no threat is too big for Levi's Squad, or why he feels like crying when the Captain tells them to continue, to take Eren to safety, and they obey.

When the female Titan appears behind them and Captain Levi is nowhere to be seen, they keep their doubts to themselves, send Eren back alone and fight, efficient as ever, slightly more ruthless, the way they fight just after they've seen a comrade die, the way they fight when the only way they can stop themselves from screaming and breaking themselves is by destroying something else.

When they slice the Titan's neck open, no one cares about the condition of the person inside. They drag her out, tie her down, and Auruo and Petra take her to the Commander. Erd and Gunther trace the female Titan's steps back to find the Captain (he’s on the ground, broken and bloody, as if he'd been thrown with exaggerated force, and what bothers Gunther the most is that not even in death does his face look peaceful).

Taking the corpse back is the longest trip Gunther has ever lived, every meter they advance the weight on his back feels heavier, reminding him that Captain Levi has fallen, that humanity has lost its strongest soldier, that if the Captain hadn't shown up they still would have been able to take down the female Titan and things would have been right.

He doesn't notice when his mouth opens and he lets out a scream of frustration and anger, he only realizes what he's been doing when his throat feels raw and he's out of breath.

 

**kuebiko** _n._ a state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence, which force you to revise your image of what can happen in this world—mending the fences of your expectations, weeding out all unwelcome and invasive truths, cultivating the perennial good that's buried under the surface, and propping yourself up like an old scarecrow, who's bursting at the seams but powerless to do anything but stand there and watch.

Even if they're going to cremate him, Erd feels the body should look presentable, which is why he makes sure to see which cart they put the Captain in, keeps track of it during the return to the walls, and, once safe inside, grabs Gunther, Auruo and Petra and makes them help steal the body.

They're too obvious, and clumsy with grief (he can feel the eyes of Squad Leader Hanji on them when they start moving), and it's ultimately a useless gesture, but they must do it, it's the only way he can think of to give Captain Levi a proper funeral, and he won't forgive himself if they don't.

Auruo is sent to the Captain's room to get clean clothes ("Wash them if you have to, but make sure they're spotless"), Gunther and Erd try to fix the broken body, and Petra cleans the blood and the dirt from his face and his wounds and washes his hair, carefully and tenderly, as if she were trying not to wake him up.

Auruo returns with clothes and a bottle of perfume he won't say how he got, and all together they dress up the Captain. When they're done, he looks asleep, and Erd feels like he's killing him again when they wrap up the body and leave him to be put at the center of the bonfire. Still, it's probably better for the Captain to go up in flames and leave only ashes instead of rotting underground, surrounded by dirt and worms. Ashes are scattered by the wind, and the smell goes away with the breeze, and in the morning the only reminder of what happened is the expression on everyone's faces.

Erd arrives after the fire has been lit with a bundle of fabric on his hands, and the rest of the squad turns to look at him, silently demanding an explanation. Where were you?

As a reply, Erd shows them what he's carrying and begins handing out items. Auruo gets the crest from the left arm, Gunther the one from the right arm. To Petra, he gives the jacket; she's the only one small enough to wear it if she wanted to, and the only one who'll be able to keep it properly.

He keeps the crest from the chest pocket, and fiddles with it as he watches the flames.

 

**pâro** _n._ the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—that any attempt to make your way comfortably through the world will only end up crossing some invisible taboo—as if there's some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, _colder, colder, colder_.

They sit around a table in silence, no one daring to meet the eyes of the others.

Erd has his head lowered, his elbows resting on the table and his face hidden by his entwined hands, his body shaking sometimes with repressed sobs, and Auruo wants to tell him to stop acting so stupidly, that his attempts to keep his composure aren't helping anyone and are simply pathetic.

Gunther covers his eyes with one hand, and clenches the other one in a fist, and Auruo worries he might draw blood.

Petra cries with her head high, not bothering to cover her face, letting her tears fall freely down her cheeks, and Auruo needs to wipe them away. He'd like to offer her a handkerchief, but the only thing he has is the cravat and his fingers feel too numb to try to take it off.

Auruo stares at the wall in front of him, trying to keep his face expressionless, his forehead crinkled by the effort, his head running through a thousand things he could say or do.

"He wouldn't approve, would he? All this fuss over one soldier when so many others have died today," Squad Leader Hanji says, sitting at an empty spot (not at the head of the table, no one should sit at the head of the table) and passing them a bottle of something they pretend not to know what it is, because no one should be drinking while on duty.

When the bottle reaches Auruo, he stares at it, unsure of what to do. Should he claim it's not appropriate of them to behave so stupidly, pretend he doesn't want to empty it by himself and forget a bit? Should he reject it, because it's not hygienic to drink from a bottle from which three other people have already drunk? Should he clean the mouth of the bottle and take a short swig? What should he do? According to Petra, he never gets it right; he's too bossy, too proud, too mean. In this moment, he's not sure he actually wants to get it right.

"There's more where that came from," Squad Leader Hanji says, and Auruo brings the bottle to his lips and drinks, trying to keep inside the sobs that are threatening to come out, trying to hide the way his lips are trembling from his efforts not to bawl like a kid.

They let him keep the bottle.

 

**anecdoche** _n._ a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

Hanji knows about mourning just as well as everyone in the Survey Corps does. She knows the way it starts, as a cloak on reality that makes you feel as if all your movements are being performed by someone else and your mind is simply along for the ride. Slowly, you realize that the hands reaching for the body in front of you are your hands, and that the whispers of "This can't be" are coming from your mouth, and that those actions are being performed only because you feel they're what they must be done. There's no one else in your head, just you, slowly drowning in the feelings while your body goes through the motions needed to keep you alive, and suddenly comprehension hits you and leaves you shaking and clinging to any source of comfort you can find.

In this case, comfort is alcohol. What she has tastes terrible and was bought long ago on a whim, more to say she had it than out of any real intent to drink it, but she's glad she has it as she makes her way to Levi's Squad and sees them reaching for it as if they hadn't drank anything in weeks.

When they ask her about it, she shrugs, because she knows that no one actually cares about what they're drinking. Soon she gets everyone their own bottle and not long afterwards they're talking, sharing stories, praising their dead leader, tears mixing with laughter as they reminisce about the good times, each one lost in their own memories, in their own way of remembering Levi.

"He was a great man," says Erd, raising his bottle in a toast and taking a swig. "We will make him proud."

"The greatest soldier humanity has ever had, or will ever have," says Gunther, his words slurred.

"He knew how to act!" says Auruo, putting his bottle on the table with such force Hanji marvels it doesn't break. "He had class! He could pull off a cravat!" he says, tugging at his own, his face contorted as he cries.

"He wasn't what I expected," says Petra, holding her bottle tightly. "He was better. So much better."

"I remember my first day here…"

"When I met him I thought it was a joke…"

"So short…."

"Simply amazing…"

"So brave…"

"Does anyone remember…?"

Hanji shares some of her own memories, bits from before any of the people drinking with her had joined the Corps, stories from Levi's first days, his first Titan kill, the moment everyone realized how great he'd be one day.

It's almost sad that an entire life can be recounted by five drunk people.

"We weren't there," Petra says suddenly, so quiet Hanji only hears her because they're sitting next to each other. "No one was there with him when we should have been. No one was there to tell him he gave us strength. He doesn't know!"

Hanji recognizes the pain in Petra's voice, the way her shoulders have fallen and how her eyes seem hollow; she knows them from when she looked in the mirror earlier, right after they'd arrived from the expedition. She looks like she would have jumped into the pyre with Levi’s corpse.

Hanji can't think of a single thing to tell her. She doesn't know what to tell herself either.

 

**semaphorism** _n._ a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don't go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic 'I know the feeling'—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.

Squad Leader Hanji doesn't speak again until everyone's too drunk to keep talking, until they've told every story at least twice and they're not really listening anymore.

"Levi was… Levi was a mess. Short, grumpy, a clean-freak. I think cleaning was the only thing that really calmed him, you know? He could spend an hour getting rid of a stain on the carpet, and he always looked so satisfied when he was done." A short swig and a sad and fond smile that makes Petra wonder how many times she saw him do that. "I've never met anyone who cared as much as he did. He loved us all, in his own grumpy way, like he couldn't understand why he loved us when we were so noisy and dirty and tall, but… he loved us. I think he knew we loved him too." She notices that Petra's staring at her and seems at a loss for words, then stands and leaves the room.

It takes Petra a minute to decide what to do, and then she makes her way outside, walking slowly and leaning on the walls because she can barely stand, to the place where the bonfires had been.

She finds Squad Leader Hanji sitting on the ground, her hands in her hair and a wordless cry coming out of her mouth, nothing like the shrills she'd let out for Sawney and Bean. Petra feels like an intruder for seeing this, the way she's wrapped around herself, as if trying to hide from the world.

"I never told him," whispers Petra, sitting next to the woman without looking at her. She can't keep crying, she's done so much of it already that her eyes feel dry.

"It's okay, he knew," replies Squad Leader Hanji between sobs. Petra doesn't think that's reassuring, but then she continues. "You were wrong earlier, about him not knowing that he'd given us strength. He knew he had, he wouldn't be able to rest otherwise." She turns to look at Petra and give her a small smile. "He's free now. He probably has real wings now, to watch over us. He'll give us strength when we need it. I'm more worried that he didn't know that we know he'll do so. Does that make any sense?"

Petra looks at the face of the Squad Leader and dares to ask the question that made her follow her outside.

"What did you feel for him?"

The other woman takes a deep breath before replying.

"Sometimes I loved him."

"And he?"

"It doesn't matter at this point, does it?" she says, her eyes filling with tears again, her lower lip trembling, and she collapses into Petra's arms.

In the morning, they'll have to decide the future of the squad. They'll have to deal with the girl who'd been inside of the female Titan. They'll have to tell Eren, for the hundredth time, that nothing was his fault, that they'll keep good on their promise to protect him. Most important, they'll have to do all that with a pounding headache, red eyes and aching joints.

In this moment, Petra hugs Squad Leader Hanji and cries with her.

**Author's Note:**

> The title, the definition in the summary, the titles of the sections, and the definitions underneath weren't written/created by me. They're from [The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/) .
> 
> Written for the kink meme. Prompt: "I want an AU where Levi dies to save his squad members. Angst and hurt/comfort; maybe they feel guilty for his death and try to find ways to remember him?" Since I'm evil, I wrote it.
> 
> Thanks to [Jessigaga13](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3044295/Jessigaga137) for taking this thing that was written at 1 in the morning and making it comprehensible.


End file.
